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Dan Grossi/Associated Press

Muhammad Ali: From the segregated south to world stardom

The world will bid farewell to The Greatest today.

TO UNDERSTAND WHAT made boxing legend Muhammad Ali tick, it helps to look at the history of his hometown Louisville and the roiling social turmoil of his childhood in the segregated US south.

Ali, who was born in 1942, came of age in the 1950s.

Dwight Eisenhower was the president. And young Cassius Clay lived at 3302 Grand Avenue in the Kentucky city.

It was a middle class part of town, with lawyers and doctors living among the regular working folks. It was also a mainly black neighbourhood.

Family life

The Clay house was a modest one. The family was quite proud of a fish pond they had in the backyard.

The future three-time heavyweight champion of the world shared a bedroom with his younger brother, Rudolph Valentino Clay. Their parents slept in the only other bedroom in the house.

Ali’s father, a sign painter, was known for his artistic abilities. His mother was loving and showed it, neighbours say.

Cassius and Rudy Clay were raised in the Baptist faith. Only later would they be known as Muhammad and Rahman Ali.

The brothers were best friends, loved eating ice cream, and were noticed in their all-black school for being bigger than the other kids.

Racial segregation was a fact of life for the pair, but at their young age, they learned to adapt.

“Black people were not equal to white people in those days,” Rahman Ali, now 72, told AFP. “We mixed with our own kind. That’s how things were at that time.”

In the middle of the 20th century, the economy in Louisville — the largest city in the southern US state of Kentucky, the home of bourbon — was bouncing back from the difficulties sparked by Prohibition.

‘She shouldn’t sit here’ 

The place to see and be seen in Louisville was Fourth Street, the liveliest in town, and where the city’s high society went to window shop.

Bars and restaurants on the street were strictly whites only. Black people often crossed the street to the other side to avoid being called “negro” — or worse.

“In some of the stores you couldn’t try on clothes, you couldn’t sit at the lunch counters and eat,” recalled Joanna Smith, one of Ali’s high school classmates.

“If you went to a shop and paid your money, you didn’t try the clothes, you just hoped that they fit you.”

In Louisville, as in many other US cities at the time, black people had to sit in the back of buses and train cars, and drink at separate water fountains labelled “Coloured.”

Smith, a school principal who is now retired, relayed the story of one particularly humiliating day when she was six or seven years old, and was walking up to Fourth Street with her older sister.

“I can remember going to McCrory’s, that was a five-and-dime store. I was so tired, so my sister picked me up and sat me on a stool and somebody said: ‘She shouldn’t sit here.’”

Stolen bike

McCrory’s has since closed its doors. So has Stewart’s Dry Goods, once the city’s largest department store. In the 1950s, its elegant Orchid Tea Room was quite popular. White women had lunch there, in hats and gloves.

Farther south on the street was the Brown Hotel, where former British prime minister David Lloyd George was the first to sign the guest register in 1923. Generations of whites danced under its crystal chandeliers.

In 1928, the Loew’s Theater opened on Fourth Street, with a magnificent multicoloured rococo facade. It, too, was only for whites.

The list goes on. Fontaine Ferry Park, with its skating rink and wooden roller coasters? No black people allowed. The Walgreens drugstore? Same thing.

What must the young Cassius — entering his teens — have been thinking?

We know at least one of his dreams at the time — to own a red Schwinn bicycle.

PA / EMPICS PA / EMPICS / EMPICS

He eventually got one, but it was stolen soon thereafter. Cassius, disgusted, went to see police. He spoke to officer Joe Martin, promising that he would “whup” the thief.

Martin, who was the head of boxing for the city’s recreation department, urged Cassius to come learn to box at the Columbia Gym.

And such was the start of a storied career.

Cassius started getting up at 5 am to run in Chickasaw Park, the only public park open to black people. He tested his sprinting skills against city buses. Nothing would stop him from being “The Greatest.”

But he was marked by a childhood lived in the shadow of whites.

“Everything good and with authority is white,” Ali once said.

“I want a dip of chocolate and a dip of vanilla, and I bet you a thousand to one, that every time, they put the chocolate on the bottom and the vanilla on the top.”

Sixty-two years after the theft of that red Schwinn, America’s first black president is in the White House. Louisville made peace with its segregationist past.

MITSUNORI CHIGITA MITSUNORI CHIGITA

And black people and white people will come together today to bid farewell to Ali, The Champ for all.

- © AFP 2016.

Read: Ali scripted funeral plans in exacting detail in ‘The Book’>

Read: The world invited to say goodbye to the late, great Muhammad Ali at public funeral>

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    Mute Misanthrope
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:15 PM

    Inside job

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    Mute Dáithí Ó Raghallaigh
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:18 PM

    @Misanthrope: definition someone with more knowledge than they should have had..

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    Mute Jimbo Jones
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:19 PM

    Nice that he wore a hi-vis. Good to see that health and safety is being taken seriously.

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    Mute Ciarán McPhillips
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:19 PM

    Who withdraws €55,000 in cash for any legitimate reason nowadays? Seriously??!!

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:22 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips:

    Are you trying to say the business was using the 55000 euro for illegitimate reasons

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    Mute Ciarán McPhillips
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:27 PM

    @Casper: what business? There is no mention of any business in the article above.

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:31 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips:

    Just because it’s not mentioned doesn’t mean it’s not a business

    19
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    Mute Ciarán McPhillips
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:35 PM

    @Casper: well unfortunately I just read the facts outlined in the article. It must be much more interesting reading the news when you don’t allow the facts to get in the way. Maybe extra terrestrials appeared and abducted them and stole the money. I mean using your logic- just because it doesn’t say it…..

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    Mute Dave Murray
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:40 PM

    @Casper: Excellent retort there.

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:41 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips:

    Happy Xmas Ciaran

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    Mute David Conroy
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    Dec 21st 2017, 6:28 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips: Agree, I smell a large hairy rat, who carries that amount of cash for either personal or business use nowadays ?
    It just does not add up or make sense, why did bells not ring in the Bank either ?

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    Mute Father Hody Commody
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    Dec 21st 2017, 6:46 PM

    @Casper: Well, if you happen to have that kind of cash on you boarding an aircraft, god help you.

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    Mute Martin Morris
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    Dec 21st 2017, 7:00 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips: hahahahahahaha just so good. I was saying boooourns.

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    Mute Jack O'neill
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    Dec 21st 2017, 9:17 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips: The robbery happened outside Rialto credit union.

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    Mute Mick Jordan
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:23 PM

    Who other than Cash in Transit Security withdraws €55,000 in cash from a Bank? 20-30 years ago understandable as possibly payroll. But today very very rare. One would have to ask questions as to what it was for.

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:25 PM

    @Mick Jordan:

    Isn’t that the work of the Garda, like I am pretty sure this is all the stuff they will be looking into

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:39 PM

    @Mick Jordan: Paying a large sum of cash is not at all unusual. Many business sale deals are two thirds through the books, one third cash. Used to be fairly common. Same for selling commercial property. About 30% under the counter is common.

    The questions would need to be asked of the person receiving it on such a transaction, rather than the person paying it over, assuming the person paying it over got it legitimately. If they took it from a bank, it’s very likely declared and legitimate income. Revenue know about deposits.

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    Mute Aidan Molyneux
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    Dec 21st 2017, 7:19 PM

    @Casper: my question is why did the Garda wait from the 7th to 21st before asking for witnesses

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    Mute Rónán O'Suilleabháin
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    Dec 21st 2017, 8:35 PM

    might be what I’ve heard called the ‘manage’ in cork. A couple of people collect money from colleagues all year, bank it, then give it back at Christmas time.

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    Mute Mark Heehee
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    Dec 22nd 2017, 8:01 AM

    @Aidan Molyneux: that’s my question too. I’ve been in the area many times,but was I there exactly 2 weeks ago at lunch? Why the delay in looking for witnesses?

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    Mute Ciarán McPhillips
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:24 PM

    The more I read this the more peculiar it becomes

    No description other an average height
    No mention of any age profile
    No mantion of any sort of accent
    He approached on foot
    Left on a bicycle
    Having (presumably) followed them by car?

    Tia less fishy in Leo Burdocks

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:26 PM

    @Ciarán McPhillips:

    Keep reading you might come up with more

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    Mute David Dickson
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:25 PM

    Why did the guards wait two weeks to make an appeal for dash camera video? How could anyone remember two weeks ago

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:28 PM

    @David Dickson:

    Well if they look at the dash camera on that day the camera will jog their memories

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    Mute John Barnes
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:58 PM

    @Casper: cams override constantly no storage

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    Mute Father Hody Commody
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    Dec 21st 2017, 6:47 PM

    @David Dickson: Plus dash cams overwrite themselves.

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    Mute Sean Whelan
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    Dec 21st 2017, 7:26 PM

    I don’t think you can walk into a bank and just withdraw large amounts of cash on demand anymore, as far as I know it has to be ordered in advance.
    If I was hedging my bets I’d be looking at an inside job.
    Not very difficult to tip someone off to a large withdrawal, sure you even know the person’s name and address in advance.

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    Mute Liam
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:20 PM

    An oddity amongst oddities

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    Mute Brian O Reilly
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:40 PM

    It was Santa ,

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:20 PM

    It’s the season for a bit of silliness and this inside job is pure silliness

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    Mute Dave Murray
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    Dec 21st 2017, 5:42 PM

    @Casper: taking €55,000 out of a bank in cash is pretty silly too, I would say.

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    Mute Casper
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    Dec 21st 2017, 6:21 PM

    @Dave Murray:

    Not if they have 55 members of family that they wanted to give a Xmas pressie of €1000 each

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    Mute Fiona deFreyne
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    Dec 21st 2017, 6:19 PM

    An amazing coincidence. Santa was early.

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    Mute Joe Dobias
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    Dec 21st 2017, 8:21 PM

    Sounds like a inside job.

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    Mute Sarah Murphy
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    Dec 22nd 2017, 9:26 AM

    Pedal Cycle; why use one word when you can use two

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    Mute Terry Burns
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    Dec 22nd 2017, 3:43 AM

    It sounds like a bloke year’s ago in a bank in Talbot st.someone lodged it .?

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    Mute brian oconnell
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    Dec 29th 2017, 1:06 PM

    Probably an “inside family” job!

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